We took the family on a New Year's ski vacation expecting to experience service from the Zephyr lodge equal to what we were paying for. However, we have received much better service from economy hotels.

When we booked our room, we requested to stay across the hall from our friends and were told it would be no problem. We called and confirmed this a week before arrival and still it was "no problem". The day of check in, we get into our room after 4 pm(later than the guaranteed time) and we were not across the hall from our friends. When we called and talked to the manager, we were told the lodge does not offer guests the choice of room location. The manager was rude and unhelpful. He offered us another room which was equally as far away from our friends. To make matters worse, the reservation dept called our room and told us that our request would never have been granted ahead of time, basically calling us liars.

The room was small and old. No dvd player only a vcr and an old tv with no dvd hookups. We were awakened each morning at 6 am by snowplows and construction vehicles outside our balcony. We had to keep asking ourselves what we were paying for. The front desk staff was uneducated on the resort's various activities and unhelpful when asked to find out info.

We are frequent travelers and have never received such poor treatment and uncaring attitude toward customer service. We will never stay here again and will not recommend the Zephyr Lodge to anyone looking for a ski destination.

Ok, so the positives first. Winter Park is a great town and the skiing was a lot of fun. The restaurants were overall good and enjoyable. The childrens ski school was well run and entertained our daughter all day long.

Now on to the negatives. We never saw housekeeping while we were there, and had to beg for clean towels. Oh, did I mention that our room was right across from housekeeping. The room did not have a dvd player, but I was told that most of the rooms only offer a VCR (who still uses VCR). Surprised they didn't offer an 8 track player. The rooms are extremely warm and you will have to open the windows to cool down. As far as the hot tub, I think you should take a dose of penicillin after you check out. My son left there with a rash, I still don't know if it was from the hot tub, dirty sheets, or heat exposure. And one more thing, they do offer ONE washer and ONE dryer per floor for everyone to use, but just hope that their housekeeping stafff is not doing their personal laundry because you will not have access to the ONE washer or ONE dryer.

And don't expect any understanding from management because they do blame it on environment and being busy.

And with that said, book a room just be prepared.

Our group of friends had some great powder snow and blue skies for all of our 11 day stay at Zephyr Mountain Lodge (slope side) the food and drink were cheap for a ski-ing holiday and the children in the group had loads to do. The exchange rate was almost 2 dollar's to the pound when we went in March 2008 so it could be more expensive in 2009. I would recommend this resort to everyone apart from hard core male groups who need steep slopes and great night life for singles. The only problem was because of all the heavy snow the pass into the resort was closed when we arrived and we missed one days ski-ing as the resort could not pick us up but this was a small price to pay for the fantasic ski-ing the rest of the holiday. Clothes are half the UK price (Spyder jacket $350 dollar's) so don't fill your suitcases as you could need some room in your case flying back.

Have just come back from 10 days in Winter Park and found the hotel excellent value for money. Always plenty of towels by the hot tubs; rooms nice and warm and cleaned twice during our stay with a change of towels each time plus more left in the wardrobe. Beds comfortable. Kitchen very well equipped and included dishwasher (with cleaning tablets), microwave and coffee maker with coffee provided. All staff friendly and eager to help. Best part of hotel was the free bus shuttle to anywhere in the town at any time - we were dropped right outside the door of any restaurant we wanted to go to and even taken right up the hill to Frazer Tubing and picked up afterwards. Bus drivers gave us endless amount of advice on places to visit and eat and they really recommended some lovely places - never disappointed. Hotel shuttle much better than the free town shuttles (which were also providing a good service).